In my webinars, I always get questions about security. It always seems like the people whose WordPress sites get hacked believe that it happened through some sort of unknown vulnerability that’s beyond their technical comprehension. Though it is true that outdated software does leave vulnerabilities open, in many of my observations, I found that these same users did not follow basic security protocols like using a strong password.

Here’s a real story: I had a client several years back whose website constantly got hacked. So they came to me for help. The name of their company was Sons X, where X represents what their business did, for example, Sons Window Cleaning or Sons Automotive. I omitted their full business name for their privacy. They were using a firewall (as should everyone) so they were confused as to how they were getting hacked more often than their peers.

After they began to work with me, I immediately found a red flag. Their admin credentials were:

https://zenwp.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/strong-password.png8842070Joel Runionhttps://zenwp.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/logo2017darkmedmargin.pngJoel Runion2017-09-11 14:07:302017-09-11 14:09:32Make Sure You Use a Strong Password & Why Your Weak Password Can Be Guessed in Less Than One Second

Always having a full backup of your WordPress website is the best preventative measure you can take against anything that may go wrong with your website such as hacks, breaks, or user error. Whether you’re new to WordPress or you’ve already been using WordPress for your website, it’s important to know why you need regular backups, what backups are, and how to successfully restore a site using a backup. All of this will help you get your site back up and running as quickly as possible in the event that your site is down or not functional.

https://zenwp.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/How-to-Create-a-Full-Backup-of-Your-WordPress-Site.png10422444Conrad Jordisonhttps://zenwp.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/logo2017darkmedmargin.pngConrad Jordison2017-08-01 08:36:512017-08-01 08:36:51How to Create a Full Backup of Your WordPress Site

Two-Factor Authentication is one of the few guaranteed security methods that every WordPress website should use. The method is popular among many websites (WordPress or non-WordPress) that take security seriously such as banks because it ensures that unauthorized users will not be able to access your account, even if they have your password.

So why is it so secure? Two-Factor Authentication relies on two elements in order for someone to login:

There’s no doubt that WordPress has a huge learning curve. And if you do not have experience working with code you might find yourself in need of a developer, or perhaps you just want a developer to maintain your site, which is where Zen WP comes into play. But regardless of one’s level of expertise, everyone needs a solid and basic understanding of WordPress.

Naturally, taking some WordPress courses would be the best answer, but as with anything, the free ones tend to be of much lower quality. That is not to say that all free WordPress courses are terrible. There are certainly some gems out there if you look hard enough.

Fortunately for you, we’ve already done all of the work and put together a list of the best WordPress courses out there. These courses are 100% free and are, dare I say, better than most paid courses.

Keeping a fresh backup of your WordPress site is the best guard against hacked sites or user error. However, backing up your site regularly can be time consuming. That’s unless you have a plugin to automatic everything of course. Fortunately, we searched through every single backup solution to bring you the most comprehensive list of the best WordPress backup plugins and solutions available today.

This article is split into two parts: key features to look for in a plugin and the 10 best WordPress backup plugins.

Using a firewall for your WordPress website is the best way to protect yourself against any hacking attempts. The reason why firewalls are so effective is because they can be used to deny access to your website if the visitor does not belong there. This means that the potential hacker will not even have an opportunity to compromise your website.

Live streaming events on your WordPress site is a great way to provide quality content to your audience. It is also the best way to promote user engagement. However, you will not see many websites utilizing live stream videos because everyone thinks it is a lot of work to set up, something that is not true at all on WordPress.

Most WordPress users who are trying to increase the speed of their site tend to focus mostly at the page level. While the website and it’s page are very important when it comes to site speed, one of the factors that many tend to overlook is the delay between when user enters your site and the moment your website actually starts loading, otherwise called Time to First Byte or TTFB.

If you are using cPanel as your web hosting control panel, you can easily create backups and restore from backups all through the cPanel interface. And although the process is very simple and quick, we actually recommend against relying on cPanel for your backups.

In a basic scenario where your WordPress login password is as simple as “password1” and a bot is making attempts to guess your password, it would probably take less than 2 billion attempts to get it right, which would take only a couple of seconds, depending on your server. One of the best ways to combat this is to simply lock out users who have guessed their passwords incorrectly too many times. Limit login attempts on your site through the use of simple plugins.